Hunger and hatred — these were the forces that made Chartism a mass movement of the British working class. The new machines flung men out of work by thousands, and sent them to struggle wildly for jobs, at any wage the employ­er would offer and under any conditions of over-work. Hours of labour in the […]

Not so many years ago every schoolboy used to be taught Kipling’s poem of “Big Steamers”. To the question “Oh, where are you going to, all you Big Steamers?” the answer came: ‘“We are going to fetch you your bread and your butter, Your beef, pork and mutton, eggs, apples and cheese … We fetch […]

The beginning of the nineteenth century was remarkable for Great Britain for its union with Ireland. In Ireland, some of the Irish united under the and began to demand independence, being affected by the French Revolution. They formed the organization known as the United Irismen. They quickly took the lead of the whole national movement, […]

Britain also developed a series of colonies in West Africa: the Gambia, Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast (now Ghana), and Nigeria, by far the largest.

The growth of the British Empire was due in large part to the ongoing competition for resources and mar­kets which existed over a period of centuries between England and other European countries — Spain, France, and Holland. During the reign of Elizabeth I, England set up trading companies in Turkey, Russia, and the East Indies, […]

A relative lack of interest in empire during the mid-Victorian years gave way to increased concern during the 1880′s and 1890′s. The raising of tariff bar­riers by the United States, Germany and France made colonies more valuable again, ushering in an era of rivalry with Russia in the Middle East and along the Indian frontier […]

When the Suez Canal built by French engineers under Ferdinand Lesseps was opened in 1869, Egypt at once became the key to the most important water­way in the world. It was especially important for Bri­tain, because the canal connecting the Mediterranean and Red Seas was on the main route to India. It cut the distance […]

In the middle of the 19th century, European na­tions and states were in varying conditions and stages of development. Great Britain, the most industrialized country at the time, controlled an expanding overseas empire. Russia held vast territories in Asia. France was overcoming social upheaval. Struggles for independence within its borders weakened the Austrian Empire, while […]

The Act of Union with Ireland came as the natu­ral sequence of the suppression of the revolt of the United Irishmen. The Act was followed by a series of Coercion Acts intended to crush the continued revolt of the peasants against the crushing burden of rent, tithes and taxes. Having grouped into several secret organizations, […]

The fifties celebrated the triumph of British pros­perity in the Great Exhibition. With all this went pow­erful activity — intellectual, literary and religious, but not military. Yet England was about to become in­volved in European war for the first time in almost forty years. Tzar Nicholas I of Russia wished to profit from what he […]